I’m sure at some point during your life you’ve heard the term “made out like a bandit” when someone had a ridiculous cache of gifts on Christmas or a birthday, to say that Nordic games made out like bandits at the auction of THQ’s remaining franchises would be an understatement. A more true statement would be that Nordic games lived up to their heritage and made out like Vikings and that they certainly did.

This exactly how I imagine it went down. Horse and all.

In a deal worth about 4.9 million dollars, the Austrian studio picked up Darksiders, Red Faction, MX vs. ATV, Titan Quest, Supreme Commander, Frontlines, Stuntman, Juiced, Full Spectrum Warrior, and Destroy All Humans. This deal is the largest acquisition of titles in the history of company, who up until now was known for Painkiller HD, and Book of Unwritten Tales as well as the upcoming The Raven, and Deadfall Adventures. Now of course this deal is pending approval of the bankruptcy court overseeing THQ’s dismemberment proceedings, but upon approval Nordic will be left holding over 150 SKU’s spread over PC, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. Owner and CEO of Nordic games Lars Wingefors had this to say: “First and foremost we are very happy about this deal which also turns over a new leaf for the entire Nordic Games Group. In the long term, we either want to cooperate with the original creators or best possible developers in order to work on sequels or additional content for these titles. A very important point for us is not to dash into several self-financed multi-million dollar projects right away, but rather to continue our in-depth analysis of all titles and carefully selecting different financing models for developing new instalments of acquired IPs”
The expected date for the US Bankruptcy Court to hear the motion for the sale is on May 13th, with finalization of the transaction taking place sometime after. One extremely encouraging move by this young studio is the opening of their forums to discuss how these titles should move forward. While I am a bit disappointed to see that Darksiders didn’t end up with Crytek USA, I am genuinely curious to see what Nordic does with this massive acquisition, fans looking to get their voice in on how their favorite titles should move forward should check out Nordic’s forums here.
In other THQ news it seems that Gearbox has acquired the Homeworld franchise for 1.35 million dollars and plans to “preserve and assemble the purest form of the original acclaimed and beloved games.” It was also mentioned that Gearbox is working on plans to make Homeworld and Homeworld 2 accessible on today’s digital platforms. IF you are a fan of Homeworld and want to help Gearbox, and Brian Martel, Gearbox’s Chief Creative officer, you can head over to the Gearbox site and voice your ideas.